Communities of Care in a Post-Welfare Service Infrastructure: The Role of "Organic Service Provision"

Background

Hybrid Community Based Organizations (CBOs) that combine services with organizing see their services as part of social change. This hybrid model is a way to provide services when the act of providing services could be considered political. In addition, services can enhance organizing and political strategies (Heynen, 2009), such as the Black Panther free breakfast program that highlighted failures of the state. This combination can create a distinct organizational form that results in distinct forms of both service provision (Chetkovich & Kunreuther, 2006; Meyer, 2010) and organizing (Anasti, 2017; Gates, 2014). However, hybrid organizations then face different challenges. These challenges are intensified as CBOs provide informal care in a post-welfare period where governments have reduced services and are unable to guarantee basic rights (Fennell, 2016). This paper examined how this combination of services and organizing differed from other forms of service provision in a post-welfare period, why this combination was meaningful to community members, and challenges for providing this unique form of services.

Methods

This paper is part of a ethnographic study of frontline work in two Los-Angeles CBOs that combine service provision with community organizing. Both organizations were selected due to their critique of traditional service provision. However, they had a key difference with one organization having a greater emphasis on services and the other having a greater emphasis on organizing. Data included participation observation at each organization between 2018-2019; 70 interviews with staff and community members; and document review. As an ethnographic study, multiple methods of analysis, including memos, mapping, and identifying key events, happened concurrently.

Findings

I identified common organizational repertoires between the two CBOs, including planning meetings for community members that also included friendship and support; community-led events or actions; and larger events that built community and shared resources. Through this combination, community members formed long-term relationships, which then helped to create communities of care and what I identified as “organic service provision.” This organic service provision connected the long-term investment and relationship building, central to community organizing, with an emphasis on building communities of care. While organic service provision included spaces for mutual aid, community members were also connected to additional resources and services, but in a more supportive environment compared to more traditional service provision. Community members found a place where they felt that they had value and could “hold on to my sanity and my hope” within a service bureaucracy. I discuss how this distinct form of organic service provision addressed gaps in service provision within a post-welfare service infrastructure.

Conclusion

This study demonstrated how organic service provision filled an unmet need within post-welfare social policy, as both CBOs provided care, support, and mutual aid that community members did not receive through other service providers. CBOs invested time and resources to build relationships and create a space where support and relationships could be developed. This study identified communities of care as an key outcome of hybrid work, and demonstrated the importance of the time and investments needed to develop these spaces.